The late Pope John Paul II was injured by a crazed, knife-wielding priest in a 1982 stabbing that was kept secret until now, Reuters reported.
John Paul’s former top aide opens up about the pope in a new documentary film called “Testimony.” The film was made from Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz’s memoir, published last year.
On May 12, 1982, John Paul visited a shrine in Portugal to give thanks for surviving an assassination attempt a year earlier, when a Spanish priest lunged at him with a dagger. The fact that the knife actually cut the pope was covered up.
"I can now reveal that the Holy Father was wounded. When we got back to the room (in the Fatima sanctuary complex) there was blood," Dziwisz says in the documentary, Reuters reported.
Dziwisz also says that when the pope was unable to speak properly several days before his 2005 death, he told his aides that when he could no longer speak it was time for him to die.
On May 13, 1981 John Paul was shot in St Peter's Square by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca. The pope later met Agca during a prison visit and forgave him.
John Paul died on April 2, 2005, at age 84.
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